The idea of such refinement has been made to appear absurd, partly by the foolish ambition of vulgar persons in low life, but more by the worse than foolish assumption, acted on so often by modern advocates of improvement, that “education” means teaching Latin, or algebra, or music, or drawing, instead of developing or “drawing out” the human soul.
It may not be the least necessary that a peasant should know algebra, or Greek, or drawing. But it may, perhaps, be both possible and expedient that he should be able to arrange his thoughts clearly, to speak his own language intelligibly, to discern between right and wrong, to govern his passions, and to receive such pleasures of ear or sight as his life may render accessible to him. I would not have him taught the science of music; but most assuredly I would have him taught to sing. I would not teach him the science of drawing; but certainly I would teach him to see; without learning a single term of botany, he should know accurately the habits and uses of every leaf and flower in his fields; and unencumbered by any theories of moral or political philosophy, he should help his neighbor, and disdain a bribe.
§ 24. Many most valuable conclusions respecting the degree of nobleness and refinement which may be attained in servile or in rural life may be arrived at by a careful study of the noble writings of Blitzius (Jeremias Gotthelf), which contain a record of Swiss character not less valuable in its fine truth than that which Scott has left of the Scottish. I know no ideal characters of women, whatever their station, more majestic than that of Freneli (in Ulric le Valet de Ferme, and Ulric le Fermier); or of Elise, in the Tour de Jacob; nor any more exquisitely tender and refined than that of Aenneli in the Fromagerie and Aenneli in the Miroir des Paysans.[9]
§ 25. How far this simple and useful pride, this delicate innocence, might be adorned, or how far destroyed, by higher intellectual education in letters or the arts, cannot be known without other experience than the charity of men has hitherto enabled us to acquire.
All effort in social improvement is paralyzed, because no one has been bold or clear-sighted enough to put and press home this radical question: “What is indeed the noblest tone and reach of life for men; and how can the possibility of it be extended to the greatest numbers?” It is answered, broadly and rashly, that wealth is good; that knowledge is good; that art is good; that luxury is good. Whereas none of them are good in the abstract, but good only if rightly received. Nor have any steps whatever been yet securely taken,—nor, otherwise than in the resultless rhapsody of moralists,—to ascertain what luxuries and what learning it is either kind to bestow, or wise to desire. This, however, at least we know, shown clearly by the history of all time, that the arts and sciences, ministering to the pride of nations, have invariably hastened their ruin; and this, also, without venturing to say that I know, I nevertheless firmly believe, that the same arts and sciences will tend as distinctly to exalt the strength and quicken the soul of every nation which employs them to increase the comfort of lowly life, and grace with happy intelligence the unambitious courses of honorable toil.
Thus far, then, of the Rose.
§ 26. Last, of the Worm.
I said that Turner painted the labor of men, their sorrow, and their death. This he did nearly in the same tones of mind which prompted Byron’s poem of Childe Harold, and the loveliest result of his art, in the central period of it, was an effort to express on a single canvas the meaning of that poem. It may be now seen, by strange coincidence, associated with two others—Caligula’s Bridge and the Apollo and Sibyl; the one illustrative of the vanity of human labor, the other of the vanity of human life.[10] He painted these, as I said, in the same tone of mind which formed the Childe Harold poem, but with different capacity: Turner’s sense of beauty was perfect; deeper, therefore, far than Byron’s; only that of Keats and Tennyson being comparable with it. And Turner’s love of truth was as stern and patient as Dante’s; so that when over these great capacities come the shadows of despair, the wreck is infinitely sterner and more sorrowful. With no sweet home for his childhood,—friendless in youth,—loveless in manhood,—and hopeless in death, Turner was what Dante might have been, without the “bello ovile,” without Casella, without Beatrice, and without Him who gave them all, and took them all away.
§ 27. I will trace this state of his mind farther, in a little while. Meantime, I want you to note only the result upon his work;—how, through all the remainder of his life, wherever he looked, he saw ruin.
Ruin, and twilight. What was the distinctive effect of light which he introduced, such as no man had painted before? Brightness, indeed, he gave, as we have seen, because it was true and right; but in this he only perfected what others had attempted. His own favorite light is not Æglé, but Hesperid Æglé. Fading of the last rays of sunset. Faint breathing of the sorrow of night.